A Very Corporate Christmas

I'm working at Wal-Mart for Christmas this year
The department is toys, my lobotomy's near
The babies are screaming, the adults are stressed
Producers and merchants are doubly blessed
'Tis the season for profits and scams
For guilt trips and greed, thank the marketing man
'Tis the season for capital gains
For jacking up prices and going insane

Have a holly jolly merry corporate Christmas
Oblige the people to consume (to consume)
You can't put food on your plate
Even if there's a rebate
Have a holly jolly very corporate Christmas

I'm shopping for Jesus, consuming for Christ
Spreading the gospel of lowering price
Away in a manger, we now see the Lord
Bequeathing his bonus to corporate boards
Checking the stock price, revenue's up
Further enriching some opulent putz
Turn on the tube, I need Charlie Brown
But you know the commercials are grinding me down

Have a holly jolly merry corporate Christmas
Oblige the people to consume (to consume)
You can't put food on your plate
Unless you want your children's hate
Have a holly jolly very corporate Christmas

It's the most lucrative time of the year!

It's 12/24 and Im starting to snap
A desperate panic for overpriced crap
Parents are playing the role of St. Nick
It's a great holiday when you can lie to your kids
Santa sells cola, and everything else
All to the tune of those jingling bells
But you'd be better off if you listened instead
To another old man who also likes red

Have a holly jolly merry corporate Christmas
Oblige the people to consume (to consume)
You can't put food on your plate
Even if there's a rebate
Have a holly jolly very corporate Christmas

HST Squeezes the Poor

McGuinty makes his move:

Ontario's Liberal government has introduced legislation to harmonize the province's eight per cent sales tax with the five per cent GST.

The bill, tabled Monday afternoon at Queen's Park, creates a single, 13 per cent sales tax that will take effect next July. The bill also includes a series of cuts to income, small business and corporate taxes that would take effect in January.

The province needs to make businesses more competitive so they can hire more people and lower prices for consumers, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said. The tax package is about creating jobs and rebuilding Ontario's economy as it emerges from the recession, he said.

The bill provides for tax rebate cheques of up to $1,000 for families to help offset the impact of the HST in the first year.

The opposition parties call the HST a blatant tax grab that will add eight per cent to many items now exempt from the provincial sales tax, including gasoline, home heating fuel and hydro bills.

Ontario's New Democrats said the Liberal government is kicking people when they're down.

The Premier reacted to NDP concerns by accusing that party of living in the past and viewing all corporations as evil. It's an arrogant slap in the face to anxious Ontarians who had been hoping the government might address their concerns rather than those of the Liberals' largest campaign donors. In his condescending way, McGuinty dismisses those who worry that the government is placing the interests of Big Business ahead of those struggling to get by in these tough economic times, by characterizing them as blinded by old-fashioned leftist ideology. One might be forgiven for thinking that after capitalism's 2008 meltdown, a new approach was called for. But in the halls of power, neoliberalism is still king, and according to McGuinty, the people should shut up and make sacrifices so as to make Ontario businesses more "competitive".

Under the current tax system in Ontario, certain essential consumer goods are exempted from the GST, introduced by Brian Mulroney in 1991 in a bid to make Canadian exports more competitive. Some of these exempt items include basic groceries, prescription drugs, inward/outbound transportation and medical devices. Under the new Harmonized Sales Tax, the GST and PST will be combined to establish a basic tax rate of 13% on all consumer goods. As the opposition parties have suggested, this will dramatically raise the price of many basic survival items and impose a higher burden on the middle and working classes, particularly the poor and those who are currently unemployed.

The Liberals' decision to protect corporate interests rather than working families is a clear sign that they know which side their campaign bread is buttered on. It is essential that Ontarians see through McGuinty's gauze-covered lies and demand that their representatives support the struggling people who elected them. The votes on this bill may have been counted already, but it's not too late to organize a broad working-class movement that will counter the pernicious influence of Big Business on the Ontario legislature.

Accept No Substitutes

Competing with fellow Teutons the Scorpions, Helloween and Rammstein for the title of Germany's biggest metal export are the legendary Accept. Dominated by the sandpaper-rough vocals of Udo Dirkschneider and the hard-rockin' riffs of Wolf Hoffman, the band vaulted itself into the heavy metal history books with three seminal albums - Restless and Wild (1982), Balls to the Wall (1983), and the more commercial Metal Heart (1985). Each has its charms, although metal critic Martin Popoff has cited Balls to the Wall as the greatest metal album of the 80s for its combination of smooth production, powerful guitar riffs and omnipresent sense of melody. But that's only because he feels Appetite for Destruction is overrated.

While many metalheads have a soft sport for 1982's "Fast as a Shark", viewed by some critics as the earliest example of speed metal, I've always dug Accept's ability to combine memorable pop hooks with high-wattage riffery. The Metal Heart single "Midnight Mover" has a memorable video and undeniably catchy chorus that helps rank it as one of my personal favourites:



The band followed up Metal Heart with the darker Russian Roulette (1986), which was seen as something of a disappointment despite the presence of stellar tracks like "Monster Man". As it happened, the record also marked the departure of vocalist Dirkschneider, who wished to abandon the commercial metal approach and return to Accept's harder original sound. He and the band went their separate ways, and in a final effort to break the lucrative American market, the remaining members recruited Californian singer David Reece for his only outing as Accept's lead vocalist, Eat the Heat (1989).

Reece appeared to be a more marketable frontman than Dirkschneider, who is generally viewed as a leading contender for the ugliest man in heavy metal history. Despite possessing a fine, if somewhat more generic, voice (summarized by one Amazon reviewer as "about 30% Rob Halford, 70% Paul Stanley"), Reece was rejected by hardcore Accept fans who viewed any incarnation of the band sans Udo with contempt, and the record found middling success at best. That's a damn shame, because Eat the Heat is actually a fantastic album. Maybe I'm biased because I've always had a soft spot for melodic commercial metal from the 80s, but I found the record a treasure trove of excellent riffs and anthemic choruses, all featuring top-notch vocals from Reece. "Hellhammer", "Turn the Wheel", "Stand 4 What U R", "Break the Ice", the single and video "Generation Clash" - there's plenty of hidden classics here. "X-T-C" was so good, it was even covered by Dirkschneider's band U.D.O., and contrary to my expectations, I still liked the Reece version better.

One of my favourite songs from the album is "Prisoner". Despite the clichéd lyrics ("she's a dancer" has got to be one of the most predictable lines in 80s pop), the song is a perfect example of the melodic metal that become so unpopular only a few years later. Here, it's all about the guitar work, the vocals, and the enjoyably dated production values. Due to its slickly commercial nature, I'd probably be a little more embarassed to play this song for people than other tracks - at least, until it starts playing, which is when I start rockin'.

Mr. Jones and Me

Alex Jones has always struck me as something of a conundrum. The Austin, Texas-based radio host is generally derided by mainstream media as a "conspiracy theorist" - an ironic accusation given those same corporate propaganda outlets' penchant for uncritically amplifying any and all claims made by the government, especially concerning official foreign "enemies". It should be acknowledged that there are few better ways for the powerful to stigmatize an idea than to label it a "conspiracy theory". Still, once you get past Jones' dire warnings of a New World Order that will usher in a tyrannical one-world government, his "strong" 9/11 truth stance and his supposition that global warming is a vast hoax designed to enslave the human race via carbon tax, eliminate American sovereignty and depopulate the Earth in the interests of a rapacious global elite, you'll find a solid foundation of facts and basic truths that usually go completely ignored by the MSM.


Unfortunately, those are some very difficult issues to get past, and they help explain much of my continuing ambivalence towards Jones. On balance, I have more admiration for him than almost any servile establishment bootlicker in the MSM, and my reasoning here is almost incidental to Jones' actual worldview, lying more in his spirit and philosophy. As official mythology would have it, journalists serve as a Fourth Estate, aggressively questioning government claims to protect citizens' rights to accurate information. And yet how many popular media figures today actually fulfill this criteria? Very, very few if we're talking about establishment American media. MSNBC has offered up some important exceptions, such as Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Dylan Ratigan and Ed Schultz, but the same network is largely a bastion of Village groupthink and conservative framing from the likes of Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough. When not devoting countless hours of coverage to the latest tabloid celebrity garbage, CNN offers the ultimate stenographer journalists, who posit a false balance on every issue by always moderating between a conservative (meaning Republican) guest and "liberal" (meaning Democratic) guest.

Finally, there is an important wild card - the right-wing noise machine of talk radio and Faux News (or "The Lie Factory"). Although journalists should aggressively question government claims, this is not the same thing as using lies, smears, exaggerations and distortions to attack a government on all fronts simply for having a president with a (D) instead of an (R) after his name. Hannity, Beck and their ilk are not "entertainers", but rather poisonous propagandists who sadly manage to convince millions of followers that they are sincere truth-seekers rather than cynical careerists.

By contrast, I feel Alex Jones falls into the former category. He appears to truly believe what he says, and has consistently risked his neck to expose the truth behind secretive elitist organizations such as the Bohemian Grove, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group, which are unknown to most of the general public but may have massive impacts on their lives. Although Noam Chomsky has dismissed the likes of the CFR as "nothing organizations", the indisputable truth is that almost every U.S. president of the 20th century was either a member of the CFR or had a cabinet dominated by its members. Regarding the Bilderberg Group, something important is being discussed when the most high-profile members of the world elite convene under secretive circumstances, if only because those guests play such an important role in the enactment of global policy. Alex Jones has a natural skepticism towards all government officials, foreign and domestic, and that quality puts him head and shoulders above most self-proclaimed "journalists" as an earnest seeker of truth.

I must note, however, that I do have some misgivings about Jones' approach. For example, there sometimes seems to be a slight element of self-serving commercialism, as his radio show continually drops the names of his websites while flogging DVDs and other Jones-related merchandise such as his "TyrannyCrusher 1" bullhorn (which, admittedly, I would like to own). However, I can easily look past this element; after all, Jones does not command the vast financial resources of his "mainstream" counterparts, and may require these alternate sources of revenue. In addition, Jones is a libertarian and has conservative leanings; he is an unabashed capitalist and so never claims to be above making an extra buck by selling merchandise.

Yet those same conservative leanings are ultimately the source of much more serious weaknesses in Jones' worldview - his belief that global warming is a hoax; his opposition to single-payer health care or even Obama's weak public option based on the talking point that it would constitute a government takeover of health care; and his America-centric take on everything, constantly invoking the Constitution and the Founding Fathers in a manner that idealizes the early United States while completely overlooking the fact that it was an actual slave society (ironic for such a firm opponent of feared modern slavery under the New World Order).

If I were more cynical than I already am, I might imagine that Alex Jones is carving out his own media niche by appealing to the "conspiracy-minded" on both the right and the left, thereby expanding his audience and creating an aura that he alone knows what's really going on, that he and his followers are above the "left-right paradigm" which everyone else so slavishly follows. Leave aside for a moment the false equivalency of this perspective. From a pure standpoint of audience appeal, in this way Jones can attract both "left-wing" listeners who believe that 9/11 was an inside job as well as "right-wing" listeners who hold that global warming is a hoax to destroy American sovereignty. Ultimately, I give Jones the benefit of the doubt because he does seem to truly believe what he's saying, but I still allow for the possibility of that more commercial perspective.

All these thoughts went through my head as I sat down to watch Fall of the Republic, Jones' latest film. As always, it's a mixed bag, one that gave me more cause for disagreement than his last work, The Obama Deception. At times it was frustrating, as Jones veered from moments of total brilliance to moments of forehead-slapping incredulity. His film was, at different times, both supremely informative and shockingly misinformative. Most of the factual discussion on the financial crisis, the Wall Street bailouts, and the flaws of the American two-party system was interesting and well-told. The interviews were highly enjoyable, particularly when the always-brilliant Max Keiser discusses the illusion of choice in the American political system by comparing the two corporate political parties, Democrats and Republicans, to other corporate duopolies such as Coke vs. Pepsi and McDonald's vs. Burger King.

There was other food for thought. Trends forecaster Gerald Celente gave a chilling preview of the dark prospects for America in the years ahead. Jones provides needed analysis of how the Obama "brand" (referencing an article by Chris Hedges) was marketed to an America desperate for change. There is an intriguing dissection of the media's role in infantilizing the masses, such as the construction of false tribal identities in males via professional sports - though Jones seems to be forgetting that bread and circuses have been used to distract the people since the gladiatorial bloodsport of Roman times. Finally, there is some discussion of the increasing powers of the American national-security complex, the rapid militarization of the state and the further curtailment of civil liberties under the Obama administration. These are absolutely vital issues that have been mostly ignored by mainstream media in both Canada and the United States, and illustrate why Jones has more legitimate claim to the title of journalist than most of his well-paid, well-coiffed "mainstream" counterparts.

Unfortunately, the film is derailed by the more unsavoury, paranoid aspects of Jones' worldview. Specifically, I refer to the film's discussion of global warming. Jones presents climate change deniers as heroes of free speech who are being categorically shushed through the elite's dominance of government and media. Most repellingly, Webster Tarpley, who has done some great research but has the same unfortunate tendency as Jones to embellish his accounts with dubious conspiratorial nonsense, equates scientists who hold that human activity is mainly responsible for global climate change with the pseudo-scientific garbage of Nazi race theorists.

Aside from his belief that 9/11 was an inside job, I have no more fundamental disagreement with Jones than his suggestion that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the elite, and the reason is simple: his argument makes no sense. If the global elite, which controls the government, Big Business and the media, is so gung-ho about battling climate change - if they've specifically invented this fake scientific consensus to use hysteria over global warming to impose massive carbon taxes and threaten citizens' individual rights - then why have those same governments been so slow on coming forward with any climate legislation at all, when they're not denying the problem's very existence (as Jones does)? Why does the corporate media - which, according to Chomsky's propaganda model, restricts debate to within the elite's own terms - consistently give airtime to those who deny climate change?

The simple fact is that governments are barely doing anything to address global warming, notwithstanding Obama's tepid cap-and-trade bill which calls for lowering greenhouse gas emissions only 4% over the next ten years. This doesn't exactly gel with Jones' theory that they've deliberately manufactured a hoax to enslave the human race and end American sovereignty. Here is the most serious factual error in Jones' whole film, originating in the right-wing elements of his ideology. It certainly doesn't help that he bolsters his case by incorporating footage of Republican members of Congress (including certified lunatic Michelle Bachmann) whose denial of climate change is roughly proportional to their level of campaign contributions from Big Oil.

The reason Jones' climate change denial grates on me so much is that he's correct on most other issues, particularly his characterization of the elite's corporate nature and his ultimately populist stance. But in this case, his own ideology prevents him from accepting the legitimacy of things like the UN report on climate change. After all, if something comes from the UN, it must be a fraud designed to serve the interests of the impending one-world government, right? That may prove to be a tragically misguided belief, because if the scientific consensus that global warming is caused primarily by human activity is sound, Jones is helping us doom the planet and its future generations to ecological catastrophe, the consequences of which we can't even begin to fully grasp. If you want to see someone who truly understands the importance and reality of this issue, and presents constructive ideas on how to cope with it, please read Naomi Klein's new article in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. It actually makes me believe we might summon the collective willpower to deal with such an unprecedented global threat, if we weren't so lazy and our governments weren't so greedy and corrupt.

So the climate change stuff kind of sinks Alex Jones' latest film. Nevertheless, I can't deny there's a lot of worthwhile stuff in there, and that's usually how it works with AJ. Because there's always a fair degree of truth in whatever he says, and because his heart is in the right place - i.e. because he legitimately challenges those in authority and awakens citizens to the need to question people in power - I will remain an Alex Jones fan. The fact that he's wrong on some issues merely reinforces the lesson that you can't trust any public personality completely, but must do your own research and make up your own mind. Jones has always encouraged this in his listeners, and whatever you may think of his particular brand of politics, that is some indisputably good advice.

Remembrance Day: War, Myth and Reality

91 years ago today, the First World War finally ended. The man-made hell in Europe marked the dawn of a new age of industrialized slaughter. Its dubious status as "the war to end all wars" became a bad joke almost immediately following the Armistice, contradicted most visibly by the even greater atrocities of the Second World War. Even today, historians disagree on the causes of World War I, a needless conflict that inalterably changed the course of human development in the 20th century and beyond. War is a contagion that feeds on the collective sense of anger and tragedy engendered by every previous conflict. But even today, the historical conditions that allowed, even encouraged, such collective madness, endure through the continued dominance of the capitalist mode of production.

The world of 1914 was in many ways as globalized as our own. It was the heyday of imperialism, and the European powers had carved up most of the world in an effort to lay claim to raw materials and captive markets that would help enrich the ruling classes of each respective country. Long before the assassination in Sarajevo, there was no room left for each of the powers to expand without encroaching on the territory of the others. In his 1915 pamphlet War and the International, Leon Trotsky explained that the move to total war was borne out of the inevitable contradictions between international capitalist markets and the outmoded, artificial boundaries imposed by the nation-state:

The present war is at bottom a revolt of the forces of production against the political form of nation and state. It means the collapse of the national state as an independent economic unit.

The nation must continue to exist as a cultural, ideological and psychological fact, but its economic foundation has been pulled from under its feet. All talk of the present bloody clash being the work of national defense is either hypocrisy or blindness. On the contrary, the real objective significance of the War is the breakdown of the present national economic centers, and the substitution of a world economy in its stead. But the way the governments propose to solve this problem of imperialism is not through the intelligent, organized cooperation of all of humanity’s producers, but through the exploitation of the world’s economic system by the capitalist class of the victorious country; which country is by this War to be transformed from a Great Power into a World Power.

The War proclaims the downfall of the national state. Yet at the same time it proclaims the downfall of the capitalist system of economy. By means of the national state, capitalism has revolutionized the whole economic system of the world. It has divided the whole earth among the oligarchies of the great powers, around which were grouped the satellites, the small nations, who lived off the rivalry between the great ones. The future development of world economy on the capitalistic basis means a ceaseless struggle for new and ever new fields of capitalist exploitation, which must be obtained from one and the same source, the earth. The economic rivalry under the banner of militarism is accompanied by robbery and destruction which violate the elementary principles of human economy. World production revolts not only against the confusion produced by national and state divisions but also against the capitalist economic organizations, which has now turned into barbarous disorganization and chaos.

The War of 1914 is the most colossal breakdown in history of an economic system destroyed by its inherent contradictions. …

Capitalism has created the material conditions of a new Socialist economic system. Imperialism has led the capitalist nations into historic chaos. The War of 1914 shows the way out of this chaos by violently urging the proletariat on to the path of Revolution.

The results of the First World War ultimately satisfied no one save the United States, which was the only Great Power left relatively unscathed by the calamity. The Treaty of Versailles paved the way for the Second World War, which was ultimately fought for the same reasons as the First; namely, rising powers (Germany and Japan) were dissatisfied with the restrictions placed on their access to international markets by existing geopolitical power arrangements. In 1914, Germany's chief rivals were France and Great Britain; by 1939, with France and Britain weakened by the strain of fighting the last war, it was the USA that ultimately represented the greatest challenge to German supremacy.

The fact that the world wars were fought out of conflicting economic and geopolitical interests between the Great Powers has been distorted and romanticized in the time since; as always, the winners write the history books. The propaganda message of the Allied powers in the First and Second World Wars - i.e. that this was a fight against militarism and dictatorship on behalf of freedom and democracy - has become ingrained as official historical truth, aided by the undeniable brutality of the Nazi and Japanese war machines amid atrocities such as the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking. But we should not permit historical romanticism to get in the way of analyzing the real concerns of the ruling classes in each belligerent nation. As Glenn Greenwald reminded us today in a story about the increasingly autocratic Iraqi administration of Nouri al-Maliki, governments do not fight wars to spread freedom, democracy and human rights. They do it for more basic economic interests - not for the country as a whole, mind you, but to ensure the elites continue to reap the benefits of captive markets around the globe.

Note this analysis by veteran British Trotskyist Barbara Slaughter, who lived through World War II as a young girl. She beautifully punctures the Churchillian myth proffered by the government of the time and since adopted by all Western governments, getting to the reality of the situation:

After the fall of France, Churchill and the government propaganda machine portrayed Britain as a brave little island fighting on behalf of the people of the world for the defence of democracy. And this was widely accepted. The country was mobilised into the war effort, and a whole generation of youth was conscripted into the armed forces believing they were in fighting for democracy against the evils of fascism.

But far from being just a “little island,” Britain was the most powerful colonial nation the world had ever seen. The British Empire made up one-fifth of the earth’s surface, including the Indian subcontinent as well as vast regions in Africa.

The colonial peoples were cruelly oppressed and exploited and the British bourgeoisie extracted vast raw materials and financial resources from every corner of the globe. It was this power which was challenged by the German war machine. In order to become a world power, the German bourgeoisie required access to the resources of the world. And the establishment of Germany as a world power was something which the British ruling class could not tolerate.

The only possible response of all the major capitalist powers to the economic crisis that was raging in the 1920s and 30s was trade war, leading to military conflict.

In 1938, Trotsky had warned of the imminence of war, which he described as “a catastrophe that threatened the whole culture of mankind.” And what was the essence of that conflict? It was an imperialist war waged by the capitalist great powers—“democratic” and fascist alike—for the division of the world and its resources in the interests of profit.

If the ruling classes' lust for dominance and access to global markets was the key impetus to two world wars, can we now say that this gruesome period in human history is well and truly over? Sadly, no. As long as the capitalist mode of production persists, the bourgeoisie of each Great Power will aim to establish its own predominance in the zero-sum game of global hegemony. Frank Capra's World War II-era American propaganda film Why We Fight pointed to the potential for Axis domination of the Eurasian land mass as the key factor in compelling the USA to join the war effort. Today, the leading ideologues of American imperialism - most notably former Carter advisor and current Obama advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book The Grand Chessboard - emphasize the continued importance of U.S. dominance over Eurasia and its ample natural resources. Is it any wonder that the seemingly pointless war in Afghanistan - with its key strategic location in central Asia - continues to command unswerving support among ruling classes in Canada, the United States and Europe?

As the United States continues its historical decline - aggravated by the inability of the American political-media establishment to see beyond its own imperialistic hubris (biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression? Expand the war into Pakistan!) - we see the potential for rival powers like China, India and Russia to step into the fray and advance the economic interests of their own elites. The key question is, as the United States is further weakened and these powers grow ever stronger, will we see a new global conflict? I used to think the possibility was remote, given the deeply entangled trade relationship between "frenemies" China and the United States. However, as America becomes ever weaker economically, might it exploit the one area in which it is still indisputably a world leader - i.e., military force?

As this article helpfully explains, that is precisely what the world's premier rogue state has been up to for the last 20 years. The United States has engaged in military action against Iraq, the Balkan states, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and is now seemingly determined to pursue a war against Iran. The military-industrial complex, the backbone of the American economy since the Cold War (and, for all intents and purposes, the Second World War), has truly spun out of control. I wouldn't be surprised if, like Germany in the 1930s (to use a tired comparison), the country's elites turn to renewed war as an economic stimulus. They seem to prefer that to any other option.

Remembrance Day should be a day in which we reflect on the colossal waste and pointless slaughter of war. Sometimes we do, but even today we feel the need to justify the killing through abstract ideals, proclaiming that Canadian soldiers in World War I died "fighting for democracy". Perhaps the individual soldiers did, but the politicians who sent them there most certainly did not. Warren Beatty, as American Communist John Reed in the film Reds, had a piece of dialogue that summed it up best. When asked about the causes of the First World War, the Reed character simply responds, "profits".

It's a considerably less romantic picture than the one we commonly associate with slain soldiers, but an absolutely essential perspective if we are to educate the people about the true causes of war and the need to end the subjugation of human life to corporate profiteering. Sanitized war memorials and regurgitation of contemporary propaganda only serve to remythologize the pointless slaughter.

Chairman Mao's Greatest Hits

Just finished reading Quotations From Chairman Mao Tsetung (aka the Little Red Book). I first became interested in reading Mao's book after watching a documentary on the origins of the Black Panther Party, whose founder Huey Newton cited it as a key blueprint for the party's programme in the 1960s. While the Panthers were facing somewhat different circumstances than the broader masses of today - i.e. with American blacks just emerging from a century-long period after the Civil War in which their status as second-class citizens had become officially enshrined through Jim Crow and segregation, which thereby necessitated a greater role for racial solidarity in the movement than might otherwise have been the case - I was nevertheless inspired by the presence of a radical North American socialist movement that achieved such high visibility during its short existence.

I had always generally viewed Maoism as a distortion of Marxism, akin to Stalinism. Mao's emphasis on the peasantry always smacked to me of trying to square a circle; for Marx, socialism could occur only in developed capitalist countries with a large industrial working class. Furthermore, Mao's grotesque failures of statesmanship, most notably the Great Leap Forward and the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, seemed to indict him as a Stalinesque tyrant who gave communism a bad name. Still, the Panthers seemed to get some use out of his works, and I had heard that Mao was still admired as a philosopher and poet in a modern China that has otherwise moved on. Could there be more to Mao than I first assumed?

After finding a copy of the Little Red Book in my local library, I carried it everywhere I went (such are the perks of its small, deliberately portable size) and read most of it on the city bus. Having finally reached the end of its surprisingly dense 312 pages, I've walked away fairly impressed. Were it not for the knowledge that Mao's policies led to the deaths of up to 70 million Chinese in peacetime, I would be fairly quick to heap praise on this book. The numerous quotations tackle all kinds of issues and is probably the only practical guide out there for launching a communist revolution. Mao's conclusions can be highly questionable, his ideology controversial and his adherence to his own advice often dubious, but I have no doubt that the book certainly presents some food for thought.

Here, then, are some of my favourite quotes from the book and my reactions to them:

"It is up to us to organize the people. As for the reactionaries in China, it is up to us to organize the people to overthrow them. Everything reactionary is the same; if you don't hit, it won't fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself."
- "The Situation and Our Policy After the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan" (August 13, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 19.

A simple yet often overlooked truth. The task of waging a people's revolutionary movement is no walk in the park, but even having the will of the people carried out by Parliament or Congress has proven to be a Herculean task in the bourgeois democratic system. In today's system, especially given the past three decades of neoliberal advances, money rules all. The place to start is by fighting against all reactionary ideas and moving on from there.

"The enemy will not perish of itself. Neither the Chinese reactionaries nor the aggressive forces of U.S. imperialism in China will step down from the stage of history of their own accord."
- "Carry the Revolution Through to the End" (December 30, 1948), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 301.

Similar to the previous quote, Mao here reminds us again that the instinct of every entrenched elite is to protect its own power. Such has been the situation in every historical system of government, from the British monarchy to the Iranian theocracy, from the Soviet apparatchiks to the modern-day corporate oligarchies, and any truly revolutionary impulses will be viciously opposed by the rulers, if necessary through violent repression. Knowledge of this fact leads us to the eternal debate, so eloquently summarized by Malcolm X, between the ballot and the bullet.

"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another."
- "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (March 1927), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 28.

Here Mao stops beating around the bush and unambiguously states the nature of revolution, which in his mind requires violence in order to forcibly overthrow the ruling class. This may be the most controversial idea in Marxist theory, and has historically divided those on the left who believe it is possible to substantially improve the lives of the working classes by working within the confines of the parliamentary system (like the Russian Mensheviks, the Canadian New Democrats, or European labour parties before the neoliberal era) from those who believe only violent revolution can lead to the end of capitalism (as thought the Bolsheviks, the Communist Party of China, and most Trotskyist groups). For me, this remains an uncertainty. I have always maintained pacifistic tendencies and tend to frown on violence, but I must admit that the powerful more often than not are willing to resort to force, and in this way they assert their dominance over the weak. Can it therefore be the case that only violence will defeat a ruling class that, aside from its hoarding of public wealth, is most notorious for its addiction to state violence? I remain indecisive, but Mao has no such qualms:

"Revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society, and without them it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power."
- "On Contradiction" (August 1937), Selected Works, Vol I, p. 344.

Debatable. Don't forget that the China of 1937, like Russia in 1917, was a country that had no real experience with liberal democracy and had been ruled by autocrats for centuries (in the case of China, millennia). It could be argued that in a liberal democratic system with appropriate checks and balances, or a direct democracy akin to the ancient Athenians, a sufficiently energized, motivated and educated population could win political power merely through exercising the power of the ballot box. However, it must be noted that even the most progressive capitalist governments, like FDR's New Deal Democrats, are only willing to be pushed so far by giving in to workers' demands for certain reforms. Any push to actually abolish capitalism and replace it with a dictatorship of the proletariat would necessarily infringe on the property and power of the ruling classes and would therefore be repelled by the full armed might of the bourgeois state. So perhaps Mao is right on this point, as long as you're a communist and not merely seeking an end to child labour or a 40-hour work week.

"History shows that wars are divided into two kinds, just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust. We Communists oppose all unjust wars that impede progress, but we do not oppose progressive, just wars. Not only do we Communists not oppose just wars, we actively participate in them. As for unjust wars, World War I is an instance in which both sides fought for imperialist interests; therefore the Communists of the whole world firmly opposed that war. The way to oppose a war of this kind is to do everything possible to prevent it before it breaks out and, once it breaks out, to oppose war with war, to oppose unjust war with just war, whenever possible."
- "On Protracted War" (May 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, pp. 152-53.

I probably agree with the first two sentences, although they are blanket statements. Anyone who has truly experienced war (as Chris Hedges wrote in War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning) knows that all the abstract proclamations of patriotism and just cause go out the window when the bombs start going off and you have to frantically reassure your best friend he'll be okay even as his intestines pour out of a gaping wound. No matter what the cause or supposed justification, war is a bloody, unpredictable affair that inevitably dehumanizes all it touches.

At the same time, anyone familiar with history, or who has merely interacted with other people, knows that aggression and violence have always been a part of the human condiction. Sometimes there are bullies, psychos, criminals and killers who initiate aggression, and in that case the rational response must be to meet violence with violence, if only to save one's life. Expanded to the larger scale of full-out warfare, the same principle holds. If Nazi Germany embarks on a campaign of annihilation to exterminate the people of the Soviet Union and destroy the state as a political entity, the people can fight, or perish. In that case, then, Mao is right - the Soviet people were truly fighting a just war. Nevertheless, that abstract knowledge can never compensate for the sheer brutality of war, the destruction it causes and the tragedies it imparts on its countless human victims.

"Can a Communist, who is an internationalist, at the same time be a patriot? We hold that he not only can be but must be. The specific content of patriotism is determined by historical conditions. There is the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Communists must resolutely oppose the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler. The Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatists with regard to the wars being waged by their countries. To bring about the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler by every possible means is in the interests of the Japanese and the German people, and the more complete the defeat the better. [...] For the wars launched by the Japanese aggressors and Hitler are harming the people at home as well as the people of the world. China's case, however, is different, because she is the victim of aggression. Chinese Communists must therefore combine patriotism with internationalism. We are at once internationalists and patriots, and our slogan is, 'Fight to defend the motherland against the aggressors.' For us defeatism is a crime and to strive for victory in the War of Resistance is an inescapable duty. For only by fighting in defence of the motherland can we defeat the aggressors and achieve national liberation. And only by achieving national liberation will it be possible for the proletariat and other working people to achieve their own emancipation. The victory of China and the defeat of the invading imperialists will help the people of other countries. Thus in wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism."
- "The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War" (October 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 196.

A well-argued case for a war that truly was one of necessity, unlike Barack Obama's laughable characterization of the war in Afghanistan in that manner. Having read Iris Chang's account of the Rape of Nanking, I know that the horrors of Japanese rule in China could only be combatted by full-scale war against the aggressors, and in that regard Mao does a fine job in this quote of reconciling the Marxist doctrine of internationalism with the nationalist feelings inherently created by war.

"The Communist Party does not fear criticism because we are Marxists, the truth is on our side, and the basic masses, the workers and peasants, are on our side."
- Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work (March 12, 1957), 1st pocket ed., p. 14.

Hard to reconcile with the Cultural Revolution and its demonization, torture and execution of those who did not follow the proper Maoist line, but a good thought for 21st century Marxists who wish to wipe the slate clean and build a new people's movement.

"Conscientious practice of self-criticism is still another hallmark distinguishing our Party from all other political parties. As we say, dust will accumulate if a room is not cleaned regularly, our faces will get dirty if they are not washed regularly. Our comrades' minds and our Party's work may also collect dust, and also need sweeping and washing. The proverb 'Running water is never stale and a door-hinge is never worm-eaten' means that constant motion prevents the inroads of germs and other organisms. To check up regularly on our work and in the process develop a democratic style of work, to fear neither criticism nor self-criticism, and to apply such good popular Chinese maxims as 'Say all you know and say it without reserve', and 'Blame not the speaker but be warned by his words' and 'Correct mistakes if you have commited them and guard against them if you have not' - this is the only effective way to prevent all kinds of political dust and germs from contaminating the minds of our comrades and the body of our Party."
- "On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, pp. 316-17.

I admire Mao's idea of self-criticism as a way to prevent rigid dogmatism from dominating party policy, but unfortunately China's own experiences during his rule illustrated that Mao had a much different attitude towards criticism that was directed at him personally.

"Both dogmatism and revisionism run counter to Marxism. Marxism must certainly advance; it must develop along with the development of practice and cannot stand still. It would become lifeless if it remained stagnant and stereotyped. However, the basic principles of Marxism must never be violated, or otherwise mistakes will be made. It is dogmatism to approach Marxism from a metaphysical point of view and to regard it as something rigid. It is revisionism to negate the basic principles of Marxism and to negate its universal truth. Revisionism is one form of bourgeois ideology. The revisionists deny the differences between socialism and capitalism, between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. What they advocate is in fact not the socialist line but the capitalist line. In present circumstances, revisionism is more pernicious than dogmatism. One of our current important tasks on the ideological front is to unfold criticism of revisionism."
- Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work (March 12, 1957), 1st pocket ed., pp. 26-27.

Honestly, this passage struck me as Obamaesque, and not in the ludicrous, Glenn Beck-inspired Obama-is-a-communist teabagger claptrap way, but rather in the method by which it reveals Mao as a politician trying to appeal to all sides, and in that regard saying things that are very broadly agreeable within the context of whoever his audience is. Whereas Obama's style is "conservatives say x, liberals say y, why can't we just all get along and find some common ground?", Mao's goes, "revisionists are too far in the direction of x, dogmatists are too far in the direction of y. We can't go too extreme in either direction." The desire of politicians to please everybody is apparently more universal than I thought.

" 'Don't you want to abolish state power?' Yes, we do, but not right now; we cannot do it yet. Why? Because imperialism still exists, because domestic reaction still exists, because classes still exist in our country. Our present task is to strengthen the people's state apparatus - mainly the people's army, the people's police and the people's courts - in order to consolidate national defence and protect the people's interests."
- "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship" (June 30, 1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 418.

A fine idea, but the problem is that power corrupts and institutions originally designed to serve "the people" have a way of being corrupted over time by a calcifying elite that equates its own interests with those of the masses even what that is no longer the case (as it rarely is when an elite exists at all). Every government will claim that it serves "the people", and checks and balances must be maintained to ensure that power does not merely return to a new, different elite. The "democratic centralism" of China and the USSR is now widely viewed as an anachronism, a failed experiment that claimed to represent the will of the people but merely perpetuated the power of the Communist Party. A new, 21st century socialism should perhaps embrace a more decentralized model.

"Every Communist working in the mass movements should be a friend of the masses and not a boss over them, an indefatigable teacher and not a bureaucratic politician."
- "The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War" (October 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 198.

Good advice...too bad it didn't work out in real life. Maybe next time?

"Communists must never separate themselves from the majority of the people or neglect them by leading only a few progressive contingents in an isolated and rash advance, but must take care to forge close links between the progressive elements and the broad masses. This is what is meant by thinking in terms of the majority."
- "The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War" (October 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 198.

"We Communists must be able to integrate ourselves with the masses in all things. If our Party members spend their whole lives sitting indoors and never go out to face the world and brave the storm, what good will they be to the Chinese people? None at all, and we do not need such people as Party members. We Communists ought to face the world and brave the storm, the great world of mass struggle and the mighty storm of mass struggle."
- "Get Organized!" (November 29, 1943), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 158.

Nice notes to end on, because I'm getting tired of writing and let's face it, you should just check out the book for yourself. Still, it strikes a crucial point for me personally, as well as other left-leaning bloggers in the information age - namely, that revolution doesn't happen in a vaccuum. If you want to change the world, you have to go out and spread your thinking, educate the people, and form a united front in actuality, not just as an academic exercise. Hopefully I can play a greater part than just writing rants on this blog, but only time will tell.

In the meantime, if you've made it this far, I'll leave you with an entirely unrelated quote by a very different political philosopher, whose point of view is less dogmatic and much funnier. Ladies and gentlemen, the late, great George Carlin:

"If lobsters looked like puppies, people could never drop them in boiling water while they're still alive. But instead, they look like science fiction monsters, so it's OK. Restaurants that allow patrons to select live lobsters from a tank should be made to paint names on their shells: 'Happy,' 'Baby Doll,' 'Junior.' I defy anyone to drop a living thing called 'Happy' in rapidly boiling water."
- Brain Droppings (1997), p. 71.

Ontario Caters to Big Business

The latest issue of the People's Voice has an article by Ontario Communist Party leader Liz Rowley on the McGuinty government's plan to deal with the recession. The news isn't good, and as always, corporate interests are firmly in the driver's seat:

In his October 22 economic update, Ontario Treasurer Dwight Duncan told us how well the Liberal government is handling the global economic crisis. Then he got to the nub of things: 205,200 jobs lost in the first 7 months of the year, an official unemployment rate projected to rise to 9.9% this winter, the continuing decline of manufacturing and secondary industry, forestry, mining, and construction. For working people, that means falling incomes, more personal bankruptcies, and a huge uptake in Ontario Works (social assistance). Seriously under-funded social programs and public services will no longer be paid from the corporate and personal income taxes which have sustained them for 60 years. Social programs will now be paid for (or not) out of revenues generated by the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) which will be introduced in July 2010.

Why is this happening? Because corporate profits fell 49.7% in the last year, and corporate tax revenue fell 48.1% in the same period. According to the Liberals, it's up to the public to bail out those corporate profits by cutting the Marginal Effective Tax Rate by 50% (from 32.8% to 16.2%), to make Ontario one of the lowest corporate tax jurisdictions in the industrialized world for new investment.

How will they do it? By eliminating the Capital Tax (a tax on capital, not labour), by reducing the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) by $4.5 billion a year, and by rebating $4.5 billion in Input Tax Credits to corporations which, under the HST will pay a fraction of the sales tax they pay today. That's why corporations support the HST.

The cut to the provincial CIT from the current 14% to a bargain basement 10%, combined with Harper's cut to the federal CIT to a new low of 15% by 2012, will result in a combined 25% CIT rate. That's lower than most corporate tax rates in the industrialized world, and 15 percent lower than the US Great Lakes states with which Ontario competes.

Who will pay then?

The public of course. The Liberals have cut a deal with the Harper Tories to legislate a 13% HST on all goods and services sold in the province, with a few exceptions. The HST will add another 8% to many necessities currently taxed at 5%. Like other VAT (value added) taxes levied in Europe and elsewhere, the initial rate increases over time. The 13% HST will almost certainly do the same. It's a shell game that will see working people take on almost 100% of the tax load, while corporations see their sales tax shrink to almost nothing. To sweeten the deal, the Liberals will send three cheques worth up to $900 to each Ontario household. That shows just how important this tax shift is to Big Business.

Besides bailing out corporations on the backs of working people through the imposition of the HST, the economic update announced that the Treasury Board/Management Board of Cabinet would "conduct a rigorous strategic spending review focused on high impact areas to ensure continued relevance and effectiveness of government programs and services and the way they are funded." Like Barack Obama's stated plan to appoint a committee charged with eliminating "wasteful spending" in government programs, this is a lot of flowery language designed to obscure the fact that social programs will be facing drastic cuts. In tough economic times, it is always workers - the lower and middle classes - who are asked to tighten their belts.

In addition, the Toronto Star is reporting that McGuinty has floated the idea of resurrecting the "Rae Days" of the 1990s. These forced, unpaid days off for public sector workers - "Dalton Days" this time around - are painted as necessary to pay off the province's $24.7 billion deficit, but it's clear that the move is a political ploy designed to pit workers against each other while deflecting attention from the Liberals' unabashedly neoliberal approach to the recession: more corporate tax cuts.

McGuinty's gall is infuriating. He directs widespread anger among Canadians to public sector workers, who he claims have been "sheltered" from the recession. It's not fair, McGuinty goes on, that private-sector workers are feeling the pinch while public-sector workers "clearly" are not. Representatives from the Ontario Federation of Labour, Ontario Nurses' Association and other public sector unions beg to disagree, but what's most notable in McGuinty's interpretation is his kneejerk hostility to the public sector and his kowtowing before the private sector, specifically the leaders of Big Business.

If public sector workers really were "sheltered" from the recession, McGuinty should have taken this as an indication of the need for even greater employment opportunities in the public sector, combined with increased stimulus spending by the government and a rash of good old-fashioned Keynesian public works projects. But after 30 years of economic policy dictated by a neoliberal fixation on fiscal conservatism and corporate tax cuts, such a people-centred approach is apparently off the table for the Liberal government, which prefers to soak the working class. A certain opposition leader hit the proverbial nail on the head:

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said "it does not make any sense" to be considering such draconian measures at the same time as billions in corporate tax cuts are on the horizon for Bay Street.

So when's the next election?

Riding with the King

I've been pretty obsessed with King Diamond lately. The depth and detail of his conceptual works Abigail, "Them", Conspiracy and all the rest is quite staggering. I've loved Mercyful Fate for some time now, and had plenty of time to fall in love with the singer's demonic falsetto. Still, his solo stuff is something to marvel at, and I highly recommend checking it out. Marvel at the Pandora's Box of voices he pulls out at whim.

The Sluttification of Halloween

"Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total
slut and no other girls can say anything about it."
- Line from Mean Girls (2004)

[FYI: I don't particularly like the term "slut", due to its obvious sexist connotations and implications of a double standard between men and women regarding sexual promiscuity, but due to its prevalence in popular discourse and the fact that women probably use it more than men, I thought it an appropriate term to use for the title of this post.]

A couple of days ago I went shopping for Halloween costumes with my significant other. As I perused the store's offerings, a discernible pattern quickly emerged among the female costumes. Specifically, almost all of them included tiny microskirts, revealing cleavage, and - in case we didn't get the idea from the bustier - accessories such as a badge that read "Officer Naughty." Of course, if a woman didn't want to dress in such revealing attire, there was always the choice of going as an outhouse, or a giant whoopee cushion, i.e. no choice at all unless she wanted to socially ostracize herself by going to the other extreme with a patently ridiculous joke costume.

Now, I'm no prude, but this whole phenomenon resulted in mixed emotions for me. On the one hand, as a heterosexual male, of course I'll be slow to object to any holiday tradition that results in an increased number of scantily-clad women. On the other hand, I've read far too much feminist literature to dismiss the larger societal implications of this, perhaps best summed up in another line from Mean Girls, which isn't even a movie I like all that much.

Karen: Why are you dressed so scary?
Cady: It's Halloween.

Basically, if every single costume available for women is a variant on sexy cop, sexy nurse, sexy witch, sexy nun, the range of possible female costumes becomes much more limited. If a woman feels that she doesn't want to dress in a revealing, sexy costume, perhaps because she's self-conscious or simply doesn't want to come off as some kind of sex object, then it's that much harder for her to find something she likes. Beyond that, when the celebration of Halloween virtually obliges women to dress in skimpy clothing, the whole world becomes one giant Playboy Mansion. Again, while that can be a good thing for straight men looking for eye candy, it ultimately objectifies women in the same manner as Hugh Hefner's lad rag.

Of course, I could be completely out of my league here. I'm sure that at this point in history, plenty of women would tell me that they have no problem with this trend, that they agree 100% with the quote at the beginning of this post, that it's "empowering" to be able to dress as sexy as they want on Halloween and have nobody say anything about it. Leaving aside for a second the implications of people criticizing them for dressing sexy on the other 364 days of the year, there is the possibility that they are merely confirming Ariel Levy's thesis in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture - i.e., when popular culture dusts off old sexist stereotypes like the Playboy bunny and reframes them as edgy and "empowering", women are merely buying into a cartoonish, consumerized version of sexuality perpetuated mainly for its greater commercial potential. It sends the message to other people that they are comfortable flaunting their sexuality, in a Maxim culture that demands women do this.

These are just random thoughts and for now I'll have to leave the issue unresolved, but there are scads of female writers who can address these topics far better than I. For now I'll point you to an incisive article by Stacie Adams in which she lays waste to some sacred cows in our popular discourse - words that have been largely drained of all meaning by overuse. Among them:

Feminism – Feminism is about equality, unless it’s about empowering women.
It can also empower men, but that usually involves being falsely accused of rape
or losing custody of your children. Feminism is about embracing your womanhood, but sometimes it’s about rejecting that womanhood as a society imposed gender constraint. Feminism is also about sisterhood, unless you disagree with some aspect of the ideology, then it is about lambasting your sisters for daring to
question hallowed mama feminism.

Thoughtless ladies have tried to use feminism to justify every behavior
imaginable. Everything from icy celibacy to wild nymphomania has been held up as typifying feminism. There simply is no consensus, which is why you have people
like Sarah Palin using the term as a means of garnering support. Since it’s been
so loosely defined for so long, it is essentially up for grabs.

Empower – Women today think wearing high heels with jeans or sport balling
a pro surfer count as empowerment. Well, why shouldn’t they? Empower is a trite
and over used word indicating that some powerless segment of society can fortify
itself through meaningless maneuvers and trends. The only real way to empower
oneself is financial. The people holding power in society are not necessarily occupying their positions because they are white or men, as there are scads of
white men living in slums right along side us women and various
minorities.

3 Inches of Awesome

Last night I attended a show featuring my favourite contemporary metal band, 3 Inches of Blood. And what a show it was. I recorded two songs on video ("Execution Tank" and "Night Marauders"), though the sound quality is so abominous that the clips aren't good for much more than historical recordkeeping.



This was easily the most intense concert I've ever been to. Although I've gone moshing before, the sheer ferocity (and velocity) of the moshpit in front of 3IOB was enough to tell me that I need to incorporate more cardio into my exercise routine, and I spent much of today fighting inexplicable abdominal pains. It was certainly a great way to relieve stress, though. In my opinion, the high points of the night were "Night Marauders", "Wykyrdtron", and of course, "Deadly Sinners." That said, there were a few questionable omissions; where was "Destroy the Orcs", for instance? The biggest disappointment had to be their failure to play my favourite 3 Inches of Blood song, the anthemic "Crazy Nights." But other than that, it was a perfectly worthwhile show which I was able to enjoy from the front row, clad of course in a freshly-purchased t-shirt adorned with the cover of the band's new album.

In keeping with metal's tradition of revolving door lineup changes, the latest 3IOB effort, Here Waits Thy Doom, has new drummer Ash Pearson filling in for Alexei Rodriguez, who was fired from the band after a punchup with the drummer from Saxon. But the most notable change is the absence of hardcore screamer Jamie Hooper, who, failing to recover from throat problems that had put him in danger of permanently damaging his voice, was forced to leave the band. In place we have guitarist Justin Hagberg taking over harsh vocal duties. Hagberg is not as strong as Hooper in the screaming department, but ultimately, the decreased scream factor does little to damage the band's status as a powerhouse of traditionally-styled heavy metal. In the end, the heart and soul of this band is lead singer Cam Pipes and his piercing, Halford-esque falsetto wail.


Full disclosure: I was first introduced to 3 Inches of Blood three years ago by a former roommate who, while a fellow metalhead, typically listened to bands like Lamb of God, Opeth, and Children of Bodom. At the time, I was still firmly entrenched in the old school; while I had progressed from my high school infatuation with 80s hair metal to embrace harder bands, I was still reluctant to move beyond the clean vocals of bands like Iron Maiden and Megadeth. When my roommate began playing the band's second album, Advance and Vanquish, it was Cam's screeching falsetto that immediately drew my attention. Truly, it was love at first listen.

The beauty of 3IOB for me was how they effortlessly straddled old and new metal sounds; while they retained the high-pitched operatic vocals and Dungeons & Dragons fantasy themes of yore, they also employed a highly aggressive, thrashy musical style and, more specifically, had in Jamie Hooper a screamer that could hold his own against any modern-day metalcore act. When the band lost Hooper, they largely lost that unique quality; although Hagberg gamely fills in on screaming duties, he is primarily a guitarist and can't hold a candle to Hooper in terms of sheer harshness.

Yet perhaps the most surprising thing about 3IOB's new album is how little the loss of Hooper affects the music. Right from the start of the air-punching opening track, "Battles and Brotherhood", this is unmistakably 3 Inches of Blood, with Cam Pipes dominating the proceedings and guitarists Hagberg and Shane Clark providing an impressive array of fleet-fingered riffery that harkens back to the twin leads of Priest, Maiden and Thin Lizzy. The next track, "Rock in Hell", is another top-notch headbanger that could have stopped with the title, but pushes on through a cavalcade of riffs that dare the listener to keep the volume below 11.

The rest of the album is a mix of typical 3IOB thrashers and a few interesting genre experiments, such as the bluesy stomp of "Preacher's Daughter", delicate acoustics of "12:34", and epic pretensions of "All of Them Witches." In summary, it sounds like a 3 Inches of Blood album, which is higher praise than it might come off as, given the absence of Jamie Hooper. With this album, Cam Pipes has established himself as the preeminent vocalist in metal today. 3 Inches of Blood, I salute your ability to withstand numerous lineup changes and keep churning out top-quality traditional metal. Now advance, and vanquish the competition!

Militarism Old and New

Apologies for the lack of posts in recent days, but I was fighting a bad cold that now appears largely vanquished. I passed some of the time watching World War II documentaries on the Military Channel, which like the History Channel seems to be on the verge of embracing the slogan "All Nazis, All The Time." Last night I caught Bryan Singer's 1998 film Apt Pupil on late-night television - in case you forgot, that's the film with Brad Renfro as a high school student who befriends a Nazi war criminal played by Ian McKellen. Singer appears to be obsessed with the Nazi period; not only did he direct Apt Pupil and the Hitler-assassination thriller Valkyrie, but his first X-Men film opened with the young Magneto utilizing his powers in occupied Poland. Now there are rumours that Singer could take the helm of possible prequel X-Men Origins: Magneto, despite his admission that he might need a break from all the Nazi stuff.

Why the ongoing fascination with the Third Reich? On one hand, the answer is obvious: World War II was the largest armed conflict in human history, and Hitler's Germany was its principal antagonist. In addition, the appalling Nazi atrocities that culminated in the Holocaust provide a visceral example of a demonic ideology responsive only to military might - in other words, an ideal villain for the military-industrial complex. Is it any wonder that since 1945, almost every leader of a country deemed an official enemy by the United States or Russia has been compared to Hitler?

The glorification of World War II by the victors is as much about legitimizing those states' own authority as it was about defeating Hitler's regime. Especially once the full extent of Nazi war crimes became known, it became almost impossible to argue against the decision of the American, Soviet, British or Canadian governments to send their armies to Europe. Although the Nazis' crimes against the Jews were downplayed by Western governments at the time - to avoid portraying the war as a strictly "Jewish problem" - in retrospect the discovery of the concentration camps provided the ultimate vindication of the Allied war effort. Since then, WWII has became indelibly known as the "good war" in Russian and Western thought.

Unfortunately, this idealized view of the conflict belies the less romantic reality that, like most wars, World War II was fundamentally a struggle between opposing world powers with competing geopolitical interests. Such a notion is incompatible with its depiction in the West as a grand contest between "freedom and democracy" and totalitarian fascism. There is little room in this conception for moral complexity and the shades of grey that also characterized the Allied war effort - the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in internment camps, the segregation of black and white American soldiers into distinct units, the firebombing of Dresden, and most controversially of all, whether the United States was justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In similar service to jingoistic nationalism, the role of the Soviet Union is often downplayed, as in the preposterous assertion of some conservative U.S. commentators that it was the United States that defeated Nazi Germany. Rather, it was the Soviet Union that truly defeated the Nazi war machine; by the time of the Normany invasions, Hitler's armies had been largely decimated in the meat grinder of the Eastern Front.

All of these skewed depictions of the war have one thing in common - to justify our own war policies, to bolster national pride and provide a legitimacy to our governments that has lasted well into the 21st century. After all, if your opponent is Nazi Germany - indisputably one of the most odious regimes in human history - it's easy to promote your own side as morally superior. This is why the Nazis have remained ideal villains in Hollywood films. But as the past recedes further and further into history, we remain focused on it to our own detriment.

It's 2009. To still dwell on Hitler and the Nazis more than 60 years after their defeat - as is all too common in our political discourse - is ludicrous and dangerous. The world has changed immeasurably since then, and the main foreign policy of Western nations is no longer the military defeat of comparable adversaries, but rather the exploitation and subjugation of impoverished Third World nations. By continuing to paint ourselves as the heroic adversaries to a more despicable, militarily comparable rival, we distort the current state of world politics.

I remember well the onslaught of Nazi and Holocaust-themed films that cropped up in the multiplex during the 2008 holiday season. While the Israeli war machine slaughtered hundreds of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and committed its own Naziesque war crimes, we were treated to films such as Valkyrie, The Reader, and most notably, Defiance - the latter, in its focus on Jewish partisans fighting Nazi aggressors, remarkable for its ironic timing. The distorted claims of the Israeli far right that its war crimes in Gaza were a defensive action found their support, as always, in reversion to a World War II mentality, a time in which Jews were the victims of ethnic cleansing rather than its perpetrators.

Let me finish by pointing you to a spot-on article by a German professor in which he examines the difference between American conceptions of WWII as the "good war" and German views of it as the "bad war". Most notable are his comments on postwar militarism. I encourage you to read the whole article, but here are some crucial passages to whet your appetite and establish the critical points:

In 1955 an Austrian member of Parliament shrewdly observed that the most significant developments in the international arena were "the Americanization of Germany and the Prussication ["Verrpeußung"] of America."

[...]

The most important legacy of the postwar occupation may well have been an ever more prevalent German pacifism in all political camps (not only in the Green Party where it is strongest). Only in the post-Cold War era have Germans begun to participate in "out of area" Western military interventions (Kosovo, Afghanistan). Young Germans abhor war and would rather not serve in the military and since the Vietnam War have become ever more critical of American military adventures abroad. The formerly deeply rooted Prussian military tradition was obliterated by the highly successful Anglo-American postwar occupation regime that produced prosperity and the "Wirtschaftswunder" instead of resentment and rejection.

[...]

Meanwhile the United States has become a militarized society in peacetime and sports a martial pride and attendant hyperpatriotism in its mainstream culture and ethos that is reminiscent of old Prussia. As the leader of the Western world, the U.S. has built the most powerful armed forces and destructive weapons systems the world has ever seen. During the Cold War the Americans spent up to 30 percent of its budget on the military. They established an awesome global base system that allows the U.S. to project its power swiftly and devastatingly when needed. It has fought long wars in Korea and Vietnam and intervened dozens of time around the world when it saw its national interests threatened.

This acceptance of a permanent peace-time military establishment and global power projection after World War II has much to do with the hard-won victories and the subsequent American memory regime of the "good war." Actually, the cultural production in the years after the war maintained an ambivalent and darker view of the war which had dehumanized so many of its young soldiers in the epic battles in the Pacific and in Europe. Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and Joseph Heller's Catch-22 stand for this darker view.

But since the 1980s D-Day commemorations turned uncompromisingly patriotic and the cultural production celebratory of the "greatest generation" that lived through the Depression and rose to victory during World War II. Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and the ten-part TV series "Band of Brothers" signify a patriotic memory of World War II that celebrates the "good war." The late historian Stephen E. Ambrose has done more than anyone to enshrine this new view in his books and in the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans. In the words of historian Chad Barry "the good war thesis became a powerfully seductive and intoxicating view of an idealized past and a golden age."

War is Peace

My first reaction upon discovering that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize was stunned disbelief - until I remembered that this is the same award that went to war criminal Henry Kissinger in 1973. The notion that a sitting president of the current United States, the world's most aggressive rogue state, could be awarded a prize for promoting world peace is laughable. It's a slap in the face to the families of slaughtered civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Gaza, and I'm sure it will reassure the Iranians that Obama, who still pushes the notion that "all options are on the table" regarding the American right to bomb their country, is more than just a fresh coat of paint on an old imperialist aggressor.

Obama's win makes a mockery of the Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee awarded it to Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." If pretty words are all that is required to win the world's most prestigious award for promoting peace, then any tin-pot dictator who proclaims himself to have peaceful intentions while engaging in a war of aggression is equally eligible. Paul Craig Roberts masterfully highlighted the difference between what the president says and what he actually does:

Obama, the committee gushed, has created “a new climate in international politics.”

Tell that to the 2 million displaced Pakistanis and the unknown numbers of dead ones that Obama has racked up in his few months in office. Tell that to the Afghans where civilian deaths continue to mount as Obama’s “war of necessity” drones on indeterminably.

No Bush policy has changed. Iraq is still occupied. The Guantanamo torture prison is still functioning. Rendition and assassinations are still occurring. Spying on Americans without warrants is still the order of the day. Civil liberties are continuing to be violated in the name of Oceania’s “war on terror.”

[...]

The non-cynical can say that the Nobel committee is seizing on Obama’s rhetoric to lock him into the pursuit of peace instead of war. We can all hope that it works. But the more likely result is that the award has made “War is Peace” the reality.

Obama has done nothing to hold the criminal Bush regime to account, and the Obama administration has bribed and threatened the Palestinian Authority to go along with the US/Israeli plan to deep-six the UN’s Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes committed during Israel’s inhuman military attack on the defenseless civilian population in the Gaza Ghetto.

The US Ministry of Truth is delivering the Obama administration’s propaganda that Iran only notified the IAEA of its “secret” new nuclear facility because Iran discovered that US intelligence had discovered the “secret” facility. This propaganda is designed to undercut the fact of Iran’s compliance with the Safeguards Agreement and to continue the momentum for a military attack on Iran.

[...]

“War is Peace” is now the position of the formerly antiwar organization, Code Pink. Code Pink has decided that women’s rights are worth a war in Afghanistan.

When justifications for war become almost endless--oil, hegemony, women’s rights, democracy, revenge for 9/11, denying bases to al Qaeda and protecting against terrorists--war becomes the path to peace.

The Nobel committee has bestowed the prestige of its Peace Prize on Newspeak and Doublethink.

Glenn Greenwald takes a slightly more ambivalent view, pointing out that Obama inherited much of these problems and, in any event, presides over a war-making state that accounts for 70% of worldwide arms sales. It's difficult to get past that kind of institutional inertia, and Obama should be commended for his efforts to adopt a more multilateral approach to foreign policy. But true efforts for peace require more than mere words, and thus far that's pretty much all Obama has had to offer.

Nothing of substance has changed in U.S. foreign policy. We have seen a cosmetic change in the country's approach to dealing with Iran, one that has already produced more dividends in one day than eight years of neoconservative threats. But the overall American tone remains one of aggressive bullying, where Obama embraces the Washington consensus of a supposed Iranian "threat" that has little basis in reality. It's an open question at this moment whether the U.S. or Israel will engage in military strikes on Iran; I'm guessing not, since any such action will cause the Middle East to explode and widen the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq into a horrific regional conflagration, but I could be wrong. Hopefully not.

It's true that Obama has only been in office for nine months and can't be expected to solve all of the myriad problems bequeathed to him by the criminal Bush administration. But the bottom line is that little has changed. Once you get past the rhetorical flourishes in his speeches, where Obama has demonstrated a consistent knack for saying one thing while doing the exact opposite, it's clear that he will prove no impediment whatsoever to Wall Street and the Pentagon devouring what's left of the American economy, nor to the continued waging of perpetual war. Again, credit must go to Greenwald for cutting to the heart of the matter:

That was from a May airstrike in which over 100 Afghan civilians were killed by American jets -- one of many similar incidents this year, including one only a week ago that killed 9 Afghan civilians. How can someone responsible for that, and who has only escalated that war, possibly be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the very same year that he did that? Does that picture above look like the work of a Nobel Peace laureate?

Let me be clear: any man who escalates one war, refuses to end another, orders drone attacks on a supposedly allied country, constantly threatens war with yet another nation, and says absolutely nothing while his country's proxy commits war crimes against defenseless civilians in a virtual open-air prison, slaughtering hundreds of children and unleashing white phosphorus on the population, is not a man of peace. He is a warmonger, plain and simple, once you get past the slick gauze of corporate PR. To see such an individual awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is an insult to peace-loving peoples everywhere, and merely confirms the enduring wisdom of George Orwell.

Clash of the Titans

Michael Moore took on Sean Hannity the other night in a no-holds barred round of verbal fisticuffs. Truth be told, I found the exchange surprisingly polite and good-humoured, although part of that is undoubtedly because Hannity (sadly) won his bet with Moore on whether Bush would be impeached or prosecuted by the end of his term. At any rate, it's a damn good discussion, at least in terms of overturning Hannity's usual RNC-approved talking points which are usually allowed to go unchallenged. Moore is no pushover and, just based on the facts, he wins this bout hands down:



Speaking of puncturing Republican talking points, Crooks and Liars highlighted some great reporting by Shep Smith, the only journalist at Fox News with any integrity (or, to be honest, the only journalist at Fox News). Interviewing Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barasso, who tries to jam every overused Republican talking point on health care into his allotted time in a flurry of self-contradictory nonsense, Smith comes out strong for the public option, correctly pointing out that if Barasso and conservative senators are so concerned about rising health care costs, why do they refuse to support the only solution that will actually lower costs - a public option to compete with private health insurers?

The unspoken answer, which Smith explictly points to, is that they are paid off by the insurance companies and Big Pharma. Barasso is slippery and evades the subtle accusations with as much canned blather as he can, but Smith's inquisitive questions - as opposed to the right-wing propaganda we generally expect from Fox - makes me wonder how much longer Roger Ailes will keep him there. On the other hand, Smith is pretty much the only real asset Fox News has to back up its laughably false slogan, "fair and balanced". I assume that's why they keep him covering more apolitical news events.